2014 will mark 50 years since the Tony Award-winning musical “Hello, Dolly!” first introduced us to Dolly Gallagher Levi, the brassy widowed matchmaker who relishes meddling in other people’s love lives.

Since then, the show (based on Thornton Wilder’s farce “The Matchmaker”) has become a classic of the American stage, with several revivals on Broadway as well as productions by community theaters worldwide. But not since Carol Channing created the role of Dolly on the Great White Way and then took it on the road has there been a national tour of “Hello, Dolly!”

That is, until now.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Emmy Award-winning actress Sally Struthers — best known for her television roles on “All in the Family” and “Gilmore Girls,” among many others — will star in “Hello, Dolly!” at the Clemens Center in Elmira. The tour opened this week in Syracuse with the blessing of the musical’s now-82-year-old lyricist and composer, Jerry Herman.

“I can’t believe it! I keep pinching myself that Jerry Herman gave me the thumbs-up to do it,” Struthers, 66, said in an interview last week.

“Luckily, he saw me several years ago in ‘Mame’ playing Agnes Gooch, and we became friends. He apparently likes my work, so he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll let Sally Struthers take it out.’ What kind of a compliment is that? Can do you any better, except for when you get to the pearly gates of St. Peter and God says you did a good job as a human being? That’s the only better compliment I could get!”

Dolly’s story is a familiar one to theater-goers: At the turn of the last century, New York City’s high-society maven is supposed to be finding a mate for “half-a-millionaire” Horace Vandergelder (John O’Creagh) — but it soon becomes clear that she wants to marry him herself.

Also looking for love are Vandergelder’s overworked and underpaid clerks, Cornelius Hackl (Matt Wolfe) and Barnaby Tucker (Garett Hawe), so Dolly recommends they get out of Yonkers to meet two eligible ladies she knows: hat-shop owner Irene Molloy (Lauren Blackman) and her assistant, Minnie Fay (Halle Morse).

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When all of them descend on Manhattan’s nightlife scene, hilarity and misadventures ensue, and some heartfelt discoveries are made along the way. Among the show’s now-classic songs are “Put On Your Sunday Clothes,” “Before the Parade Passes By” and the title tune (which was a No. 1 hit for jazz legend Louie Armstrong in 1964).

Struthers played Dolly in five regional productions in five different states in the past few years, so she feels she has a great grasp on the character. (Other notable onstage Dollys over the years have included Pearl Bailey, Ethel Merman, Ginger Rogers and Martha Raye, with Barbra Streisand starring in the film version.)

“The first time I played Dolly, when I got those costumes on and put the wig on, there came the role,” she said. “It’s a joy to play, because she’s one of the strongest leading roles for females in American theater that was ever created. ...

“It’s a journey every night onstage, to see Dolly wake up and realize that while she’s matchmaking for everyone else, she’s missing the parade and she needs to rejoin the human race. ... In the middle of a musical comedy, there are these touching moments that, if you do them right, they bring a tear to someone’s eye. How fun to have them laughing one minute, almost crying the next, and then laughing again two minutes later. You feel like you’ve mastered your art if you can pull that off.

“In the last several years, I’ve had so many compliments from my fellow performers, especially the young ones, who stand in the wings and watch me. They’ll say afterward, ‘Watching you is like watching a master class in comedy.’ It makes me feel so good that I’ve really honed my craft.”

Of course, she added with a laugh, “I’m 66 years old, and if I wasn’t pretty good by now, I should have hung it up a long time ago!”

And although she is the name that everyone knows among the “Hello, Dolly!” actors, Struthers feels love and support from those who surround her.

“This producer, Dan Sher, and director Jeffrey Moss went out and got a cast for me to work with that are all perfect — perfect for the role, perfectly talented, perfect human beings to live on the road with,” she said. “There’s not a rotten apple in the barrel, and I’ve worked in casts where there are one or two rotten apples — trust me, it spoils it for everyone.”

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Working live is obviously quite different from recording a TV show or film, and Struthers points out that there are many big-name Hollywood actors who won’t set foot onstage because they don’t want the hassle of learning all that dialogue at once — not to mention the singing and choreography in a musical such as “Hello, Dolly!”

“You’re like a trapeze artist without a net,” she said. “You go from beginning to end and you better not mess up, and if someone else messes up, you better be clever enough to help them out the hole you just found yourself in. It’s death-defying to be out there and not have anyone around who yells, ‘Cut — let’s do that again.’ It’s not for sissies!”

The “Hello, Dolly!” tour will take Struthers and her castmates around the country between now and April, and Struthers is looking forward to all the stops ahead.

“I’m excited about it. We’re going to a lot of states and a lot of cities and towns,” she said. “There’ll be people who loved ‘Hello, Dolly!’ when they saw it 20 or 30 years ago who’ll come and bring their children and grandchildren, and there’ll be people who have never seen it before who are coming because they’ve heard of it or because they watched me on ‘Gilmore Girls’ or ‘All in the Family.’ I don’t care how we get ’em into the theater — as long as they come.”

She also has her own personal project planned along the way: “I’ve started writing down words and drawing pictures for my own line of greeting cards. I’ve brought my art supplies along, and I’m going to paint. I want to make the downtime as productive as the theater time.”